funfetti

eh i disagree with the above. you only get one shot at a phd. you need to do what is best for you. this happens all the time when people get late offers at better places, especially when initial schools make you sign stuff so early. i'm sure you won't be the first or the last to reneg with the london school. they won't be super happy, but they're not going to sue you. 

Should we expect to hear about waitlist status today?

Howdy, hi there, hey. It's me. Ya girl. Back at it again crying and begging for someone to decline their UGA offer. Pls. Pls. Pls. 

I got into UT Austin off their waitlist! Heard from them this morning (IR). I am DELIGHTED! And I will be accepting the offer  
I have also contacted Rice to ask them to take my name off their waitlist, so hopefully it might help someone there  

I doubt that most universities will have that knowledge. However, in the upper tiers it would not surprise me if adcoms across schools were in conversation with one another in order to admit as efficiently as possible. They all know one another anyway.
Having seen many people struggle through this process, I have fairly strong opinions about this stuff.
As you suggested yourself, the real problem is that it's really unethical to accept two offers knowing that one will ultimately have to return to one of the schools with some excuse. There are so many waitlisted people, sitting on the edges of their seats, waiting to hear back from somewhere. And it's devastating to have no where to go after after having been waitlisted for, say, three months. Maybe it is possible to admit people after they have been rejected from the waitlist, but it's not very nice for anyone. Besides, persons rejected from a waitlist (due to your friend's decision) may then make other arrangements and then accept other offers if they have any. So people who are re-admitted off the waitlist must now 1. either do what your friend did and turn down a school from which they had just accepted an offer, or 2, still due to your friends actions, loose out on (maybe) their dream school and stick with their original acceptance. And this is all because your friend could not decide between two offers. Your friend's actions may have pretty far reaching consequences and I would appeal to him by pointing these consequences out.
An even more serious problem is that your friend starts his career in political science by lying, or being deceitful at least, to a whole bunch of people who have decided to take a chance on him. Perfect strangers who wanted to give him an opportunity. It seems to me that people like your friend is not just a "person who happens to lie" at a moment, he is just a liar. And it would not surprise me if his general attitude is in favor of cutting corners and do whatever is expedient in any given situation. This does not bode well for a career in academia and I would hope that such a person would reflect on his priorities. I do not know exactly what it takes to succeed in academia (does anyone?) but I do know that the kind of attitude that your friend seems to embody will not get him far. Literally everyone sees through that stuff right away.
I said above that adcoms will likely not find out that one has accepted two offers - but if they do it would not surprise me for a moment if both programs retracted their offers. This should be deterrence enough. If I was you I would grab my friend encourage them to do the right thing. Besides, if your friend has a hard time choosing it's likely that the two offers are equivalent. So just pick one.
I don't mean to come across overly harsh, but the whole application process takes a psychological, and even physical, toll on so many people and what your friend is planning on doing makes this, already very difficult process, even harder for everyone.

Hi all! Is anyone here declining UVA? Also, should I expect waitlists to be solved by April 15?

Declined my offer at MIT. Hope somebody on their waitlist will celebrate soon!

PROFILE
Type of Undergrad Institution: International Student
Major(s)/Minor(s): Political Science (Comparative Politics)
Undergrad GPA: 3.86 (equivalent)
Type of Grad: N/A
Grad GPA: N/A
GRE: 168V/168Q/6.0W
Any Special Courses: Political Methods Course, Statistics Courses
Letters of Recommendation: 1 Professor, 1 Associate Professor, 1 Assistant Professor (I've worked extensively with all of them).
Teaching Experience: I've been an undergraduate TA for six different courses
Research experience: Undergraduate thesis (which turned into my writing sample), RA for eight faculty projects
RESULTS
Acceptances: WUSTL, OSU, NYU, and MIT (all funded); Chicago (MACSS, 2/3 tuition covered)
Rejections: Texas (Austin), Chicago (PhD), Michigan, Harvard, Berkeley
I don't really feel like I "learned" a lot during this cycle, mainly because we get so little information about what we did "right" and why we did not get into the places we didn't get. Besides, we are working with such a small sample that it is easy to make unwarranted generalizations (for instance, looking at my results you could conclude that international students are guaranteed to get in at universities that are usually abbreviated using acronyms...) So, I'll echo some of the previous points that have been raised, as I feel they are sound advice.
1) I think starting early is a good idea, it gives you time to go through your materials several times (although don't over edit! especially your statement, at some point it's just not worth it) and you give recommenders enough time. Also, going over the online forms is a pain, so dedicate some time to that.
2) I would say that taking the GREs is mandatory for international students, even if they say its optional. I just cannot see them accepting an international student (that is not from a hugely famous school) without any frame of reference. One exception could be doing an MA in the US, but that is quite a lot more expensive than just preparing for the GRE.
3) I got offers without doing an MA so I'm glad I did not postpone the process, but maybe in other cases it would make sense (e.g. a bad undergraduate GPA).
4) I was glad of the amount of schools I applied to, I think nine is the sweet spot (as long as you diversify your pool).
5) During the process I only spoke with one professor from the departments I applied to, and it was because we knew each other previously. I think contacting people you don't know just to say "hi I'm applying to your department" is probably not productive. If you have questions, just ask the graduate coordinator. Again, maybe it helps (how can we know, really), but to me it felt wrong.
6) While we can do a lot of research about each department we apply to, some things are just out of our control. For instance, I later learned that one of my POI in one school had moved to a different school a year ago, without any sign of it a) in the original school's website, b) in his google scholar; c) even in his personal webpage. Lesson: academics suck at updating public facing portals, so just assume this will happen with at least one professor and don't worry about it too much (I doubt that was the reason that I didn't get in that particular place).
7) I think fit may be somewhat overrated. I applied to places that had people that were close to my current interests, but at the end I still weighed how broad the place was when making my decision. And I believe the committee assumes you'll change your interests once you start the program. So I guess just apply to places you like?
8/ When waiting for the results, assume that not hearing back is a rejection. I don't think there was a single case this year of someone getting an acceptance later (without being on a waitlist, of course).
9) Finally, some stuff that helped me decide where to go: a) everybody loves the place they are in, so read between the lines for criticism and stuff that is not great about their departments; b) speak with current graduate students individually (for instance, I asked the professors I spoke with to contact me with some of their graduate students), and not only the ones that directly approach you; c) open houses are useful, if only to meet your potential cohort; d) during one-on-one interviews with faculty I usually asked them about their current and future projects, which was useful for gauging how much I wanted to work with them; and e) former graduate students are also a great resource, particularly what their dissertations were about (for instance, if no one has done anything related to your current interests, that is a red flag).
I don't regred hanging around at Grad Café one bit, even if it was stressful sometimes. It really helped seeing other people in my same situation, and everyone are so nice. Take care, and good luck!

Accepted off the waitlist at UIUC! I am so relieved and thrilled and all of the emotions!

Want to underscore poliscipls plea but at a general level. If you know you're not going to go to one or more of the schools that accepted you, you should really decline the offer(s) ASAP. It benefits no one to hold off, and it generates some modicum of goodwill to be a 'good citizen' of the profession, i.e., to facilitate moving down the waitlist(s). Keep in mind that as an incoming PhD student, let alone a possible future academic, you're dealing with people are going to be your peers and colleagues.
(And we may not be talking about in terms of "the invisible college." I'm old enough to have interviewed, discussed the papers of, & helped out people who got accepted at Georgetown but went elsewhere – almost always for totally legit reasons; if you've dealt with me you may know that I'll tell prospective students to go elsewhere when it's in their interests to do so). 

I believe there is too much variation to infer a pattern about timing. I don't have any insight about how departments time decisions/notifications, but I think there are some things to consider about waitlists that have helped me manage expectations...
In many cases, someone declining an offer does not lead to someone being accepted off the waitlist. It is important to remember that most schools already have "built-in" alternates before they even consider the waitlist. Since schools generally have an idea that 1 in 2 or 1 in 4, etc. will accept the offer, they admit students accordingly. So, if we think about a school that admits 30 applicants for an expected cohort of 10, we know that even if 20 students decline, there may not be any movement on the waitlist. 
This cycle, I can think of few schools that admitted only a handful more students than they plan to have attend in the fall. In these cases, there may be more movement/more rapid movement as the schools plan to use an "active" waitlist to ensure they get only as many students as they can afford and no more. 
Another thing happening behind the scenes is that departments may or may not be managing subfield waitlists... doesn't affect whether they notify people a day later or weeks later but it's helpful--for me at least--to keep in mind.  
 

Claiming an acceptance from Chicago MAPSS. Funding details to come later!

A note for the waitlisted: there is often a ton of movement in the week or so before the decision deadline (April 15), as there are always folks who wait until the last minute to turn down offers. I know it's agonizing, but remember: nothing's set in stone until the deadline has passed.

Hi everyone, my cycle's officially over & I want to thank you all for making this space so helpful and supportive throughout the stressful process! (even tho I mostly just read your posts) I'm now planning to start at NYU in the fall (CP/methods) and focus on internet/social media politics & political movements. If you're considering NYU, have similar interests, or want to freak out over grad school, feel free to dm :))

JUST GOT A FULLY FUNDED OFFER FROM CONCORDIA!!!!!

Maybe this was already covered on the forum - but are there people here who received multiple CHYMPS offers this cycle?

With silence from Harvard, I think its safe to presume my cycle is over. A big thank you to everyone on this forum that made this community such a great place for support and info over these past few months. Best of luck to those still waiting on results. Congratulations to everyone, we should be proud of our efforts regardless of the outcomes as this was a crazy ride.

Now that it seems that the CHYMPS offers are all or mostly out, I'm wondering how many people got offers at multiple tip-top schools. Some posters have clearly claimed acceptances at top schools amidst many other rejections, so now I'm wondering if anyone here has "swept." 
Also, if you don't want to out yourself, feel free to dm me because I'd love to know about your experience and what drove your success

Got into Chicago Harris! I'm over the moon -- such a great way to end the cycle!

Now that it seems that the CHYMPS offers are all or mostly out, I'm wondering how many people got offers at multiple tip-top schools. Some posters have clearly claimed acceptances at top schools amidst many other rejections, so now I'm wondering if anyone here has "swept." 
Also, if you don't want to out yourself, feel free to dm me because I'd love to know about your experience and what drove your success

Claiming a Harvard Government waitlist in CP.

Thank you all so much for your kind words yesterday after I got my first, and likely only acceptance! It was quite an overwhelming day so I was logged off the forum for most of the day after I got the call.
Congrats to everyone who has gotten good news in the meantime, and good luck to everyone still waiting it out! I have gotten literally only rejections until getting into my dream program, so don't lose hope!

Congrats to all the MIT admits!
On the other hand, it seems Harvard is going to be a grand finale for many people in this cycle! Apart from the two results on the result page, has anyone heard anything from them?  

Claiming an MIT waitlist for SS. I finally broke and made a profile after being a long-time lurker. This cycle, I've been waitlisted at MIT, Princeton (IR), and Chicago (IR) and admitted to Yale (IR). Still waiting on Georgetown, but I'm presuming rejection...
Congrats to all the admits this cycle. It's been brutal, and I'm looking forward to this all being over. 

Firstly, congratulations to everyone who managed to get admissions during this brutal application cycle. As said before numerous times, not getting an admission is not an indicator of one's abilities since there are so many variables included in this selection process.
As we're approaching to the end of this year's decision timeline, I wanted to ask to those of you who got multiple offers, how do you plan to decline the other offers you managed to get? What kind of email structure do you plan to use? Luckily, I was offered a spot at multiple institutions and I have been in contact with POIs in many of these places, I am not sure how to approach to the POIs with an intention of rejecting their offers. 
Open to all suggestions.